Faces From the Past
by Bianca4
Summary: The story about how a certain group of children lost their innocence.
1. Reminiscing

Disclaimer: I realized I should probably stick this in. Anyways, you all know how it goes...I don't own Dark Angel, or any of it's characters...blah, blah, blah.  
  
Enjoy the story!  
  
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Faces From the Past  
  
Chapter One: Reminiscing  
  
It happened years ago, but I still remember them...remember their faces as if it had all happened yesterday. They're hard to forget. We were all so young.  
  
We weren't normal. We never would be. At least those of us that survived had the chance to fit in, to try and be as normal as we could ever hope to be. The others...they could have fit in if they had had the chance. But that was stolen from them, just like our childhoods...our innocence.  
  
I guess I should start at the beginning. It's not like there's any other place to start if I want this to make any sense. First though, I should give you some background information before I start telling you our story.  
  
Vivadyne Research was what started it all. They were a research company, and to everyone else, it was a company that developed drugs and antibiotics. They were revered, practically demi-Gods. But to us...to us they were the devil incarnate. Their sole reason for being was to breed freaks like us, to stick us with needles and perform experiments on us. We were little guinea pigs to them. Nothing more, nothing less.  
  
Anyway, in 1995, Vivadyne opened a research facility in the Wyoming Mountains. This was to be their home base for their latest project, Project Manticore. They had gotten scientists from all over, and presumably payed them quite well, to test recombinant DNA. Their goal...to create an advanced infantry soldier. Basically, genetically engineered killing machines. They were mixing in animal DNA with human DNA to create this superior race of soldiers. We were designed to be superior, and superior we are. The catch is that, while we're great at being super soldiers, everyday life has a way of getting to us. We aren't always sure what we're supposed to be doing...or not doing as the case may be. Sounds great doesn't it? Yeah, right.  
  
Anyways...their first attempt was the X1 division. I don't even know much about them except that they sort of self-destructed in a way. The scientists had tried to do too much to them at once and it backfired, so they were all terminated. Terminated? God, I still talk like I did when I was there. Old habits die hard, right? Anyways, the bottom line is, the X1 division was a failure in the most spectacular way. Kind of like the next group.  
  
The X2's came next. Surprise, surprise. They were also a total disaster. Not quite as bad as the X1's, but still pretty bad. From what I remember, they were more like rabid animals than anything else. Thinking back on it now, it's sad to think of them like that. There were 30 originally, and 26 of them were termin...no, killed. They were killed. Put down like the animals they were. The only reason the other four were left alive was so that the scientists could study them. To us-the X5 division-they were nomalies...monsters in the basement that we were meant to be afraid of. And we were. I didn't learn until later that they were our prototypes, in the early stages of course...but our prototypes none the less.  
  
There were the X3's and the X4's before us as well. They were also our prototypes. Slowly being perfected through many, many experiments. Then there was our group. And this is were our story begins. 


	2. The X5's

Chapter Two: The X5's  
  
There were 12 of us in all. We were the first successful group of the X series. To Manticore, and more specifically, Vivadyne Research, we were their hope for a better generation of soldiers. To each other...we were siblings. Of course technically speaking we weren't genetically related in any way, shape or form. Hell, they probably didn't even use the same feline DNA in us. But whatever...It never mattered to us...even after we found out that normal brothers and sisters were related. We were all we had.  
  
I was...no, I am X5-701. That's what I've always been. 331366001701 is my barcode number. We all had them. That's what they referred to us as...numbers. Nothing human, nothing they could possibly relate to. We had to name ourselves. That was actually quite funny. It was...a challenge, to name ourselves. Especially when we didn't even know how to go about doing that. We didn't know that there were a ton of names we could have picked. And we certainly didn't know that inanimate objects weren't used as inspiration for names. That was one of our happier times. Our names may have turned our rather...uniquely, shall we say, but be that as it may, they're our names, and that's what matters. They were something to call ourselves other than our designations. They made us feel human...something other than perfect little soldiers.  
  
Anyways, I'm starting to get off topic. It's such an easy thing to do, especially since it's such a hard thing to remember...  
  
Lydecker was head of Manticore at the time. Colonel Donald Lydecker. He was strict, harsh, and we hated him. Well, not at the beginning. We didn't start to hate him until later on. The feeling wasn't mutual though. To him, we were his pride and joy. We were the fastest, strongest and most agile of all the transgenics to come out of Manticore. We could, and still can, run faster, hold our breath longer and hear farther. We were the best. Simple as that. All this may not seem so awful, right? Well, let me tell you, I'm giving you the censored reader's digest version. It was no paradise. The price was high. Higher than any of us would have chosen to pay, if we'd been given the choice of course.  
  
What hurts most, even now after so much time has passed, is the fact that we'll never be normal. The one thing that we all wanted so badly always remained just beyond our grasp, because no matter how hard we tried, we were different. We always would be. The barcode is our constant reminder of that. It's etched into our DNA-It can't be removed...can't be forgotten.  
  
Everything was fine at the beginning. I mean, we never loved Lydecker or anything, hell, we didn't even know what love was. We didn't even like him really. We tolerated him. Yeah, tolerated's the right word. But the only reason we tolerated him was because he was our commander. We had never questioned that. That's how it worked. It's what we'd been taught. But around November of '09 things started to happen...and our tolerance of Lydecker, and Manticore as a whole, turned to outright hate.  
  
We were out on some training exercise one day. There had been something in the atmosphere that day. Something foreboding. I remember I had had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach just before we had left the barracks. I think we all sensed something that day. It was like a premonition of what was to come. It had been very quiet. We were all doing are very best not to make a sound. It wasn't a calm silence though. The kind of silence that you get when everyone is occupied...or distracted if you will. It was a restless silence. One that whispered of bad things to come. Unfortunately our instincts proved all too true.  
  
We were all relatively close together. There had been a raven in a tree nearby that screeched suddenly. I never did figure out why it did that. We had been too quiet to startle it. It was as if it was warning us...no, it was an omen, a bad one...still is. I guess that's a bit superstitious, but anyway...It caught us all off guard. Brin must have been really tense. She pulled the trigger so...so suddenly. No one saw it coming. Not even Zack. All we knew was that Jace was bleeding, bad. We all did our best, especially Jondy who was good at field med. But there was nothing any of us could have done. Everything happened so fast. It was all a blur.  
  
That hurt. It was our first memorable loss. We had lost others very early on, when they had been taken away to be experimented on, but we were too young to understand what that meant. I wish we could have gotten to know those ones. It always makes me sad to think I had other siblings, but I just never got to know them. Anyways, you could say that the death of Jace marked the beginning of the end...depending on whether you're a pessimist or an optimist. You know, is the glass half full or half empty? That kind of thing. To me, it was the end an era, and the start of something much worse. 


	3. Seizures

Chapter Three: Seizures  
  
It had only been about three weeks since Jace had died. Three weeks...that's not a very long time. It was too soon. We weren't ready.  
  
Jack had been having seizures a lot lately. I mean, we all had them, but he was getting them more and more often, and the intensity of them was increasing every time. We'd been doing our best to hide him when he was having a seizure, and it had been working fine. By this point, we had no illusions about what they would do to him if they took him away, which is exactly what they'd do if they ever realized what was going on.  
  
On this particular day though, there was nothing we could do. We had been lined up listening to Lydecker giving us our orders for our mission. Ironically, I think it was an Escape and Evade exercise. Anyways, Jack was starting to shake. We could all see that. Lydecker was pacing so he had his back to us a lot and didn't notice. But we did. Jack's shaking was getting worse by the minute. I remember I was just praying that he'd last a little bit longer. Long enough for Lydecker to have finished, and the exercise to have started so that we would have been in the woods. It...it just wasn't meant to be. As soon as I saw the raven in the tree, my prayer to the Blue Lady died instantly. On the outside, I appeared to be the good little soldier standing at attention...on the inside...on the inside I was panicking.  
  
Jack's seizures were increasing in force. I think, on some level, he must have known. He must have known that this was it...that he'd be in the good place by the end of the day. That didn't make it any easier for me though...knowing that. When the seizures became too violent, he collapsed. I remember my heart almost leaping out of my chest and then nearly stopping. I was thinking 'Not another one. Not so soon.' There was nothing we could do. We couldn't have hidden him. Not that time. Another ten minutes...five even and he would have been home free. We would have been in the forest. Plenty of places to have hidden him there. But then again, the raven was a bad omen, wasn't it? I should have known.  
  
Lydecker had seen him. Nothing. Not a twitch. He hadn't even reacted, except to order a couple of the norm soldiers nearby to take Jack away. So calm...so cold. Heartless. Jack had been lying there shaking like he had been hit with a bunch of tasers, and Lydecker didn't even blink an eye. Nothing. Then again, not one of us had blinked either. Though, unlike Lydecker, we were all hurting inside. None of us wanted to lose another sibling so soon.  
  
I remember wanting to scream...to scream at the top of my lungs with the injustice of it all. We hadn't chosen this life. Lydecker and Vivadyne Research had made us, obviously without our consent. They were the reason we existed. It wasn't fair. But then again...neither is life. Lydecker had acted as if he didn't care. And in that moment...in that fraction of second, I realized he never had. To him, we were weapons. Tools to be used in combat, representing billions of dollars in R&D. That was the day I stopped tolerating anything and everything Manticore except my siblings.  
  
After Jack was taken away, we completed our exercise like good little soldiers, and did all the usual routine things...but it wasn't the same. Jack wasn't there. He had been the oldest after Zack. We had looked up to him, and all of the sudden he was gone, and he wasn't going to come back.  
  
Later that night, after the rest of us were asleep, Max, being the non- sleeper that she i...was, the non-sleeper that she was, snuck out of the barracks. She saw what they did to him. She saw him on a steel table with doctors all around him...cutting him up...trying to figure out what had gone wrong, like he was some machine they could fix. I remember her telling us that the doctors had been experimenting on him like he hadn't been a person, a child. Like he had never been anyone, and I guess to them, he never had been.  
  
Things weren't the same after that...Gee, I wonder why? Yeah, I guess it's a bit of a given that things weren't the same...I mean, we'd lost two of our siblings in a span of less than a month. That was too much. We couldn't handle it. I guess after we'd bonded and gotten to know each other, we figured they'd leave us alone. No more siblings being taken away. No more siblings who we'd never see again. Obviously we were wrong. So much for our theory about being together until the end...well sort of...I guess we were together until the end in some ways. It just wasn't the end we'd planned on. Anyways, the bottom line was that we had decided that we weren't going to lose any more of our siblings. We didn't know what we were going to do, but, as cliché as it sounds, we knew we were going to do something. 


	4. Rebels In Paradise

Chapter Four: Rebels in Paradise  
  
It had only been about a week and a half since they'd taken Jack, and it seemed like it was starting all over again. Max, the baby of our group, had been starting to have seizures more and more frequently. We were all afraid. But we knew...we knew that there was no way in hell that they would take her too.  
  
I remember waking up that morning to the sound of a raven screeching. I freaked...inwardly of course, but I still freaked. It was then that I knew, we all knew. We weren't so sure that we'd be able to protect Maxie. We'd try of course...but just maybe...maybe that wouldn't be good enough. That's the kind of influence the raven had on us. Sounds crazy I know, but it never was to us. Not then...  
  
We did all the normal things that day. Nothing unusual or weird happened. I almost convinced myself that the raven wasn't a bad omen...that it had just been a coincidence the last couple of times. It almost worked too. But I should have known...there's no such thing as coincidences.  
  
That night Lydecker came into the barracks for inspection. I remember it struck me as seeming odd that Lydecker should be there since he usually wasn't the one to do that. One of the lower ranked norm soldiers was usually the one to do the inspection. But no one said anything...we had been trained not to. We had just assumed that he was going to make an announcement or something like that. Yeah right...I wished.  
  
He stood there, and his gaze swept over each of us in turn, then turned to the two norm soldiers behind him... I'll never forget what he said. I should have seen it coming...I had seen it coming...I just couldn't quite grasp the fact that it was really happening. In those few seconds, while we had all been shocked, the two norm soldiers had crossed the room and had been getting ready to take Max away.  
  
She was only six. Six years old. The memories of what Max had said about what they had done to Jack echoed in my mind. "Not her." I had thought. "Not our baby sister. She's so little." But I knew...I knew that for all the screaming in my mind, which would never help her, I would never actually do anything...I couldn't...I didn't have the guts. I didn't have the guts to step out of line and actually confront them...confront Lydecker. I had been too well trained...too well disciplined. We all had, even though it was killing us inside. All of us, except Eva.  
  
She surprised us all that night. Before we knew what was happening, she had disarmed and shot the two norm soldiers. And just as quickly she had whipped around, gun trained steadily on Lydecker. She had guts. She had more guts than the rest of us...even Zack. We would never have had the courage to pull a gun on Lydecker and be so blatantly insubordinate. That's what got her killed in the end though. I've always wondered why she never shot Lydecker. She could have, God knows she was faster, and maybe she would still be alive know, along with many others. Was it because she lost her nerve? Or was it because our training went too deep? I'll never know. She took that secret with her to the grave.  
  
Lydecker had pulled out his gun as soon as he figured out what the hell was going on. He had ordered her to stand down. But she didn't. She stood there, gun steadily pointed at his chest...his heart. The look in her eyes was so defiant. But I guess she wasn't defiant enough. She could have shot him before he so much as twitched. He would never have known what hit him. But she didn't...and watching her lifeless body fall to the ground, uniform stained with blood, Lydecker's gun still smoking, was the one of the most painful things I've ever had to do.  
  
I had wanted to hate her...blame her for not having shot Lydecker first. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. She'd had more guts then any of us. I hated Lydecker though. I hated him like nothing else in the world I'd ever hated or would ever hate. I had felt betrayed. Yes, betrayed. I know that seems weird since we had never really liked Lydecker...just tolerated him. But no matter how much I tried not to believe it...no matter how hard I tried to deny it...I had trusted him. We all had...or most of us anyways. I've never been sure about Zack. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. It doesn't really matter either way.  
  
Within five minutes Lydecker had had all three bodies removed and the floors cleaned. After that, he'd told us it was lights out. I remember it had seemed as if he had wanted to say something else, but he had just turned and left instead. I think we were all in shock. Perfect soldiers trained to kill under any circumstances shocked over one death? Ironic wasn't it? But the thing is...if it had been someone else, someone not in our unit, not one of our siblings, we would never have cared. Their death would have been irrelevant to us. But it was Eva, the Brave One. The one who showed true courage when everyone else froze.  
  
Max and Zack always blamed themselves after that. Max because she'd been the one having seizures, and Zack because...because he was our C.O....our leader...our big brother. He felt he should have protected her, but truth be told...well truth be told, he could have done something. Any of us could have. But we didn't...and Eva paid the price.  
  
After Lydecker had left, and things in general had quieted down a bit, we got together. We planned. Eva's death was the last straw. We knew what we were going to do, and we'd have sooner died then have been stopped. 


	5. Escape To Freedom

Author's Note: I'd just like to mention that I am not following events exactly. I have, and will continue to manipulate some events to suit my little author needs. :-)  
  
Also, please bear with me if updates begin to have slightly larger gaps between them. Between being a full time student, and lack of creative inspiration, some chapters make take longer then others.  
  
Those things aside, I'm glad to hear that everyone seems to be enjoying my story! It is my first, but, when I finish this one, I do hope to write more. And thank you to all the people who have been reviewing my story! I appreciate it a lot!!  
  
Now you can go read the next chapter in my story. It's a longer one. ;-Þ  
  
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Chapter Five: Escape to Freedom  
  
If we'd stayed, they would have taken Max first thing the next morning, and then Eva's death would have been for nothing. We weren't going to let that happen...not after she'd been so brave.  
  
We'd planned well into the night, and when we were ready, we had set our plan into action. The norm soldiers stuck on duty were just going on rotation, right on time...like good little soldiers. The lock on the barrack door had been dealt with ages ago. It was incredible how lax the security was considering how valuable, and equally dangerous, we were. Oh well, it just made our lives easier. So without so much as a glance behind, we all crept out and made our way silently down the hall. It had been so quiet. I could hear our hearts beating, nothing else.  
  
Through a few doors, and even through a few guards, we crept completely silent. If it hadn't been for the sound of my own heartbeat I'd have thought that the whole world had gone mute...it was suffocating. Seconds, minutes, hours later, who knows...it was all a blur. But eventually we got to our designated location. And there we were...lined up in front of several large glass windows, staring out into the cold December night.  
  
The ground was covered in snow, and lights on the side of the building, and ones that would be on the perimeter fence, would make traveling unseen more difficult...but not impossible. After all, that's what we'd been made to do. If we could make it out of Manticore...if we could make it out alive...then there really was nothing that could stop us.  
  
That was it. Our road to freedom. We'd have been free no matter what...so long as we kept going forward. If it hadn't been freedom in life, then it would have been in death, because anything was better than what we were leaving. So there we stood...patiently.  
  
The silence had been threatening to suffocate me completely. I was sure that even a norm would have been able to hear my heart beating right then, that's how loud it was. And then Zack gave the signal. I remember the crash...the sound of the alarms going off before we'd even hit the ground. We'd shattered the windows like the alarms had shattered the silence. Then it was cold...cold and damp. The snow was already melting on our bodies. It was up to our ankles...I hardly noticed...I don't think any of us did. As soon as we'd hit the ground, we'd taken off...all of us running in different directions, not knowing what was happening to the others.  
  
We were to meet at a pre-designated location. Once there, Zack would give us orders from there. I don't remember much now...I didn't even remember much then either...just running...running as fast as I could to the rendez-vous point. It all flew by. All I remember was lots of trees and snow, and the cold...cold, hard fear. Yes, fear. I was afraid because I didn't want to go back...afraid because I wasn't sure I wanted to go on, and that felt like a betrayal to all my siblings...dead and alive. But I continued running. Like I said-a blur, in more ways than one.  
  
What I do remember is hearing all the shouts from the base behind us...the chaos that had reigned since the moment we'd shattered the glass. I remember seeing the alarm lights casting red shadows all around me...it had reminded me so much of Eva...her death...her blood...the reason we'd been running for our lives.  
  
I remember arriving at the rendez-vous point and panicking because I didn't see anyone else. I had been terrified that the rest had been shot and that I was the only one who had made it. I nearly had a heart attack when, first one, then a whole group of little heads popped up from behind a snow drift...they all had had familiar faces. I immediately jumped behind the snowdrift with them, soldier instincts kicking in. We could hear the echoes of guns and tasers in the distance. But the Blue Lady must have been watching over us that night because within minutes, the rest had arrived-no casualties.  
  
I didn't get the chance to celebrate the relief I had felt when we'd all arrived. Zack was already pairing us off and giving us orders-with the well known hand signals we'd been taught-to split our pairs up later on. He'd point to two of us, then point in a certain direction, and off they'd go. I remember getting a knot in my stomach whenever a pair of my siblings ran off. I didn't learn until much later that it had been sadness that I had been feeling that night...Anyway, it had made me sad, but I understood...I understood Zack's reasoning, I understood why. So when he had pointed to Tinga and I, and signaled our orders, we'd run off without any hesitation.  
  
The brief time while we'd been waiting and given orders, had given the soldiers time to get mobilized. I could hear the sound of motors...snowmobiles, speeding along behind us, gaining on us. They were gaining fast...too fast. We'd had a ways to go before we'd been supposed to split up. But Tinga and I both knew, between training and instincts, that we'd have to split up sooner. It would split their attention and as a result, cause some confusion which would buy us some time. We never exchanged so much as signal...we just knew, instinctively through all our training and our bond, what we were going to do. We stole a fleeting glance at each other before we'd each run off to whatever fate awaited us.  
  
I was alone...truly and completely alone. Cut off from everything...my siblings...my home. Yeah I know, Manticore's not exactly what you'd call home material, but it's where we'd lived since we'd been made. It's all we'd ever known. And as I was running, my heart pounding louder than I can ever remember it doing, I started to become aware of unconscious doubts. I remember thinking that even though I might make it to the perimeter...even though I might make it over the fence and even make it to the point where I'd lost the soldiers for good...what use was it? I'd be free yes, but I didn't even know what freedom was, and even that depended solely on whether or not I actually did make it beyond the perimeter fence and safely into some hiding spot.  
  
Then it had occurred to me that even if I did all that...even if I did learn what freedom was...I might never see my siblings again. They could all die and I might never know. I might even live my life without ever seeing them again, either because our paths never crossed or because they had died, and some...some I never did see again.  
  
I hadn't had time to dwell on those thoughts much longer. The perimeter fence had come into my field of vision. There were soldiers everywhere. Norm soldiers, yes, but still soldiers and lots of them...and they were armed. I had known then, instinctively, that they'd been given the order to keep us from escaping by whatever means necessary...and in that moment I hadn't cared...I hadn't cared if I lived or died. That's when I'd changed...that's when I decided that death would always be more welcome than going back...that's when I decided I was going to escape, and that I was going to escape by whatever means necessary.  
  
I remember becoming fully conscious of the fact that, up until that moment, I hadn't been sure...I hadn't been sure that escaping was what I'd wanted. Sure I hated it there, but escape to what? I had a sort of little mini- epiphany then. I had realized that it wasn't what we were escaping to that mattered...it was what we were escaping from.  
  
It had been with that thought in my mind that I'd pushed a little harder...run a little faster, and flown by the soldiers in a burst of speed that carried me over the perimeter fence and into the woods beyond. It still amazes me that I made it, even now. I had been tired, and very cold. There had been so many soldiers, yet not one of them...not one of them reacted fast enough to shoot me before I'd disappeared into the freedom beyond. 


	6. Where Do I Go From Here?

Chapter Six: Where Do I Go From Here?  
  
I had been tired, both mentally and emotionally, and I had been hungry and my body had been starting to feel the cold, particularly my feet. I remember the snow had been glistening in the moonlight...completely untouched. The tranquil silence had been such a contrast to the chaos from earlier; it had been a welcome sound to my still ringing ears. There had been a creek nearby...it had looked so calm...bubbling along, making soft noises. I hadn't been able to resist stopping beside it briefly. But as nice as it had been to stop briefly, and give my body a break, it had allowed my mind the chance to wander...  
  
Freedom: The state of being free; personal liberty or natural independence. That's what the dictionary says, but what does that mean? How do you know when you're free? I mean really and truly free? Those questions had assaulted my mind as I had sat there watching the bubbling creek beside me...so calm...so unlike my thoughts.  
  
Eventually I had decided to keep going, for security reasons of course. So I had pried myself away from the creek and its comforting noises, and continued creeping along to...to, well...I hadn't really known what I was creeping to, just what I had been creeping from. I didn't really know where I was going. I mean, I knew all the geography, I could name all 50 states and their capitals and blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean...but I didn't know where I was going...I didn't know what I was going to call home.  
  
That's about when it had finally sunk in. For the first time in my life, I had been lost. Not lost, as I said earlier, in the sense that I didn't know where I was, because I knew perfectly well where I was...I was lost in the sense that I didn't know what was going to happen...how things were going to turn out. Kind of a joke really...I mean who does know what's going to happen? You'd have to be clairvoyant or something to know what's going to happen, and I sure as hell wasn't. Maybe if I had been, things would have turned out differently. No point in thinking about that though. All the 'what ifs' in the world couldn't change anything, because you just can't change the past...you can only do your best to change the future-for better or for worse.  
  
I hadn't even been in a norm town yet and I was already overwhelmed by the concept of freedom and the outside world. Kind of pathetic, but what else could anyone have expected? Manticore had been all we'd ever known. And so with those thoughts in my mind, I kept walking North East, destroying the untouched beauty of the freshly fallen snow.  
  
I had walked all night. It had been morning by the time I had crossed the border and reached the outskirts of Scottsbluff, Nebraska. I could hear all these different noises. Some of them had been familiar, like the sound of cars, but others...others had been completely foreign to me. Eventually I reached the city. It had been early in the morning, and I remember seeing the sun reflecting off these huge glass towers. I had been in complete awe. I had had no idea what skyscrapers were at the time. All I had known was that they looked beautiful reflecting the rising sun off their glass sides in the cold dawn. Like the dawn of something new...something better. Just goes to show what an optimist I was then. I wouldn't know until much later just how wrong I had been. 


	7. A Place to Call Home

Chapter Seven: A Place to Call Home  
  
Overwhelmed. Total sensory overload. That's what it had been like for me since the moment that I had set foot in the city. The sounds, the smells...everything was so overpowering. I didn't know what to do...and for the first time in my life, the people around me...the people passing me in the street...they didn't give a damn, and strangely enough, I was glad that they didn't. For once I didn't have someone always watching me, no matter how silently, no matter that it was on some monitor in an obscure part of the facility. There was no one watching me. It was...well it had felt...like a release, like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. If I had jumped off a bridge started doing jumping jacks in the middle of the street, no one would have cared. They all had their own problems, and unless I was blocking the street while doing the jumping jacks, they weren't going to care.  
  
Anyway, I continued to walk down the street. I must have looked really weird, and it's kind of funny now. I mean, here was this little kid with a shaved head and walking around in what must have looked like rags by that time...makes me smile now. That's something I never did often...apparently I still don't, or not as much as I'm "supposed" to. Anyway, going off on tangent there, and not a pleasant one either.  
  
So, I was walking down the street. I could tell, even with my limited knowledge of the outside world, that I was in what would have been the rich neighbourhood before the pulse. It had still been decent looking then too. I mean, considering the general state of the country at that point. The houses were all kept, maybe not as well as they would have been before, but still kept. And the fact that they were houses with families, and not other things, was impressive in itself. Most people lived on the streets. Only the really rich people survived the pulse without too much damage. And here I am going off on another tangent, speculating about the richness of people after the pulse. Bad me.  
  
I remember, as I was passing the houses, something had caught my eye through one of the windows. They had been balloons, which of course, I didn't know at the time. The only balloon I had ever seen before that was the red one that Zack had gotten out of one of the tree's back at Manticore. But these balloons were all different colours, and they had said "Happy Birthday" on them, which had totally confused me. I hadn't known what a "Birthday" was then. I had stopped, and was just staring at them...not quite sure what to make of them. I had wanted to know what they were. But eventually I decided that it was waste of time to stand and stare because I had had no intention of going to the door and asking. I had had a feeling that that would have been highly suspicious. So I continued walking.  
  
I was making my way out of the "rich" area, which was rather small, and was slowly, but distinctly making my way into the real slums of the city. I was getting nauseous with all the smells, but I kept going, like a good little soldier. At some point I came to a building, which I had suspected had been an office building before the pulse. It was one of the sturdier looking buildings. Most of them looked like they were condemned and should have been torn down, not that that was going to happen. Tearing things down costs money. The government didn't have money. Or not enough to waste tearing down buildings anyways. So they'd just stay there. They'd only come down when they finally became so dilapidated that they wouldn't be able to support their own weight. You just hoped you weren't in it when that happened, and let me tell you, that happened plenty then. Still does actually.  
  
So anyways, that's part of the reason I chose this particular building. I say chose, but in fact, it's more accurate to say I was drawn to it. I was drawn to it because...well, I hate to admit it, but I was drawn to it because it reminded me of Manticore. And because Manticore had been my "home" up until a few hours ago, it was something familiar, very familiar, and though I hate to admit this even more, the familiarity provided me some sort of sense of safety. Not safety like nothing could hurt me so long as I was in the building, what a joke that would have been...on several levels, but safety in the sense that it reminded me of something that I knew very well...very intimately. Anyway, it seemed like a good enough place to stay for awhile. I hadn't planned to stay there long, but then again, you can't predict the future right? 


	8. Settling In

Chapter Eight: Settling In  
  
I'd been there a few days. In those few days, I'd 'moved' in. I'd picked a small corner room on the top floor. One side of the office faced south, the other East. It had had huge floor to ceiling windows which had given me plenty of light. Would have been a great view if the windows hadn't been so dirty, but I'd loved it despite that.  
  
After a doing some recon in the building, I'd discovered a few other people in other parts of the building, but they had been too busy with their own problems to care much about a newcomer. So I stayed out of their way and gone looking in the empty parts of the building. I had rummaged around a bit...in dumps and various dump-like corners of the building. I remember it had seemed like such a triumph when I'd found some old cushions and knit blankets. I say old, but in actual fact, they probably weren't that old...they just happened to look and smell like it. They were pretty disgusting. But on a non-existent income, they were priceless.  
  
The office itself wasn't that much better. Other then the having huge windows, it was as much of a dump as the rest of the building. I remember being able to smell where some people had used the corner of the room to urinate in. But I wanted to be on the top floor...it had reminded me of the High Place Ben had always talked about. It was comforting on some level. I hadn't realized that that had been why I had chosen that room at first. But it hadn't taken me long to figure it out. Anyway, despite all the dirt and disgusting smells, which I had been completely unused to, given the fact that I had come from a sterile prison, but despite all that, it had been...warmer, I suppose. Friendlier. More like a place you'd call home. Not just a house...a building. Buildings are everywhere...but they don't necessarily have to mean something...they don't have to be a place you bond with.  
  
It was funny. In the few days I'd been there, I'd managed to make that tiny, dirty, smelly office feel more like a home then a lifetime had ever made Manticore resemble. I mean, I'd used an old desk that had gotten knocked over as a little shelf for whatever I might have needed it for in the future. It had been the perfect size for me, too...given my height at the time, that is.  
  
Food had been a major issue though. There had still been running water in the building, thank the Blue Lady for that, albeit very cold running water, even by my standards. But believe me...it had been better then nothing. And, most importantly, it was free. Unfortunately, unlike food. Food wasn't free. And I'll be damned if it was cheap either...not that cheap or expensive had made much of a difference then, given the fact that I hadn't been just poor - I had been flat out broke. As in, no money. Nada, niente, nichts. Even if I had had money, knowing what I know now, I'm not sure I would have known what to do with it. Well, no. That's not exactly true. I knew that you gave the money to the vendors in exchange for whatever it was that you'd wanted. But see, I had had no clue about, you know, the whole concept of getting change, not getting ripped off...a few minor things. Yeah right. I was so ignorant, someone could have told me that an apple cost eighty bucks and I would have given it to them...without question too. I mean, here I am, a trained killing machine, taught in the art of interrogation techniques and I don't even know to question the prices of food. There's got to be some irony in there somewhere. Sad, but true. Then anyway.  
  
So that had been my problem...well, one of my most immediate problems anyway. I mean, the whole being on the run from a secret military operation that would sooner kill me then let me be free was, you know, also one of my problems...just a minor one though. Yeah right, anyway...as I was saying...food was my most immediate problem. Even the little perfect X5 super soldiers needed to eat eventually. I hadn't eaten in a few days and my stomach was making sure I knew that. I hadn't eaten since we'd left Manticore. I'd found scraps of stuff here and there, but that's all they'd been. Scraps. Some of them you even had to question just how edible they really were. They sure as hell weren't nourishing though, I'll tell you that. But like I said, I'd been broke. And in a world where money rules, if you don't have any, you don't get anything.  
  
So that was my life as of then. I lived in a dump...eating out of dumps, and on the verge of starving anyway. The little office had been no four star hotel, that's for sure. But it wasn't Manticore either, and, in the end, that's all that mattered. That's all I had cared about. 


	9. When the World Spins So Fast

**     Authors Note:  **Sorry this chapter's so short.  I was going to make it longer, but it seemed to be telling me to stop.  Every chapter seems to have its own natural stopping point.  Anyway, enjoy!

*                  *                  ***  
  
**     Chapter Nine: When the World Spins So Fast...  
  
     The more I had lived on the outside, the more I had questioned why it was we left Manticore.  I had thought that after having that mini-epiphany, back when I had been running towards the perimeter, that life would be...well, I want to say easy, but that's not really what I had in mind.  I guess I had figured that it would have been easier to cope living on the outside knowing what we had left.  But it hadn't been.  Not really.  I remember always struggling...trying not to lose sight of the reason we had left.  The blood that had been shed for our freedom.  The guilt I had felt...the guilt I still feel...I never meant to doubt what she had done for us...What she had given up for us...I knew it had been a sacrifice...but when the whole world is spinning around you so fast, and you just can't quite seem to be fast enough to grab hold of something...grab onto something to steady yourself...I always felt like I was betraying them.  I didn't know then that it was ok to be unsure, to be overwhelmed by what I didn't know, what I didn't understand.  
  
     On the days when I felt worst, when I was cold and hungry and almost wished we had never left...it always hurt that much more...knowing that, despite the cold and the hunger, I was free, and that's what they died for.  That's what Eva died for.  The only thing that kept me from going make was the knowledge that if I did, I really would betray her, her death really would have been in vain.  So I stayed, surviving with what knowledge I had.  The sun kept on rising and setting, as always, and as always, I would rise and set with it...just like I had all my life.


	10. Life Moves On

**A/N:**  I'm sorry this took so long to write.  Life's been getting in the way of my writing. ;-) But don't worry, I haven't forgotten this story (no matter how much it seems like it), and I do plan on finishing it, so bear with me.  Anyway, here's the long awaited next chapter.  Enjoy!  
  
              *             *             *  
  
     Chapter Ten:  Life Moves On  
  
     The Blue Lady had finally decided to glance my way, because within another few days, and after several recon missions...Rec...Aw hell.  So much for not sounding like a "soldier."  Shit.  Anyway, after _looking around a bit, I found a small "bar."  And I use the term "bar" loosely.  It may have been a bar at some point before the Pulse, but at the time it had resembled a dump more than anything else.  A really nasty smelling, whole-in-the-wall dump that tried half heartedly to resemble the "bar" it had once been.  It was really the main hangout for the local hookers and their tough, macho pimps.  
  
     Dirty as hell in there though.  Surprise, surprise.  Had _the_ worst smell to it I swear.  Can still remember what it smelled like, that's how bad it was. Still makes me nauseous too.  Disgusting combination of smells too.  Alcohol, smoke, sweat, among other things which I'll not torture you with by mentioning.  Having a hyper sensitive nose didn't help a whole hell-of-a-lot either.  Sickening.  It really was.  But I've already said that plenty.  But despite, or quite possibly because of, the nauseating smells, it was also short staffed.  And on an empty stomach, as long as some of their cash made it into my hands, I was willing to overlook the smell.  
  
     Anyway, those are just little details of my life after Manticore.  I mean, if you really want to know, yeah, I got the job.  No big surprise.  No one else "applied."  It even wasn't so bad once you got used to it.  Well, not as bad as I had imagined anyway.  I actually got stuck with all the crappy little jobs no one else wanted to do.  Go figure.  Always made the "strange, freaky looking kid" do the crap jobs.  Made sure I wasn't anywhere near the cash though.  So little faith in me...  
  
     Anyway, that's all water under the bridge as they say.  The money did feed me, and I did eventually make a few friends though they were mostly outside of the "bar."  The money also helped me fix up my digs.  It's funny how something as simple as "furnishing" and fixing-up your own place can make you feel so...so...content, I guess.  I didn't understand it then, and I certainly don't understand it any better now either.  Most of the stuff was crap.  Total junk.  Stuff I had "fixed-up."  Make shift stuff.  I guess that wasn't what really mattered though.  The quality I mean.  I guess it was the fact that it was mine.  It didn't have belong to some revered research company, or some secret government project.  It didn't have to fit any warped regulations.  It was mine.  I could do what I wanted with it.  Make it how __I wanted it.  Well what do you know...It all leads back to our leaving Manticore.  Our freedom.  Because that's what it was about.  Maybe a very small detail in my life, but it was still about me being free to do what I wanted.  
  
     Here I am, sitting, reminiscing, saying that all these tidbits were just that - trivial details of my life.  But in reality...in reality they were so much more.  They were the beginnings of my life.  My life away from Manticore.  My real life.  Like it was all suddenly in colour, as Maxie once said.  And it was.  Everything seemed so much brighter...so much more real.  I learned...so much.  I started to understand things...life, why norms valued it so much.  It really can be pretty spectacular, though "spectacular" works either way.  It can be a painfully sharp double edged sword...Anyway, adding freedom to something that was already so amazing just made it so much more.  Beyond words.  Cliché I know, but still every bit as true._


	11. You're Not Alone

     Chapter Eleven:  You're Not Alone  
  
     About a year went by, and I'd begun to adjust to my new life on the outside.  I missed my siblings though...maybe even more than I do now.  At least now I know where they are...what happened to them...that, one way or another, they're okay.  
  
     Anyway, the point is that I missed them.  I hadn't seen any of them in a year, and given the fact that we had done everything together for the entire beginning of our lives, it really left me feeling...empty.  Lost.  I remember thinking that Zack would do something.  Knowing he would.  You know, get in touch, give us new orders, I don't know.  I'm not sure I ever did.  All I knew for sure was that he wouldn't abandon us.  He just wouldn't.  One way or another he would look out for us, and I was right.  He did.  I just wasn't ready for it.  
  
     To this day I'm not sure how he did it.  How he found me.  To my small corner of the world I was Lyse Avery, the weird, smart aleck orphan.  To the rest of the world I didn't even exist.  But somehow...somehow Zack not only tracked me, but all of our surviving siblings as well.  He managed to find us no matter where we had scattered ourselves to; even if it was a hole-in-the-wall, dump of an "apartment"-my home.  Impressive?  You better believe it was.  But that's just Zack.  
  
     So anyway, I came home one day, and there's this blond boy in my room.  I remember the overwhelming sense of déjà-vu I had...like I should have known him.  I did.  From the set of his shoulders and his stiff posture to the hard, haunted look in his eyes...it was all so familiar and yet...and yet he looked so different than I remembered him.  His hair was a bit longer, he seemed a lot taller, but most of all he seemed older.  Yeah, I know a year had passed, but it wasn't physically older that I meant.  He seemed older in the sense that that past year had tried him.  He looked so tired...so worn out.  But then again, I guess we all were in our own way.  Maybe not as much as Zack, but tired just the same.  
  
     And so there was Zack.  Our CO, our protector, our big brother.  I had hoped and sometimes even prayed to the Blue Lady that I would see one of my siblings, and there was Zack.  I remember being completely in shock and thinking how "unsoldier-like" it was.  The funny thing was...I didn't care.  He was there.  We were safe.  Nothing else mattered.


	12. Lost In Life

     Chapter Twelve:  Lost In Life  
  
     On the one hand, it was great to see a sibling, any sibling, after nearly a year without any contact with the closest people I'd ever known-the ones I'd lived with all my life.  The ones I grew up with.  On the other hand, Zack was a tight assed, anal SOB.  Born that way as far as I'm concerned.  Even at 12 or 13 or whatever age he had been, he knew how to command.  He'd always been able to.  Just his very presence made you want to snap to attention, and I remember how very close I was to doing just that when I first knew it was him.  He turned around and he just had...had that look. The one that makes everyone feel like they've screwed up big time even if they haven't; makes them want to fall all over themselves to obey.  Despite all that, he hadn't wanted me to.  It was an action far too reminiscent of what we'd left behind.  The first thing in our lives that we'd run from.  Still expected me to obey though, the bastard.  But a year's a long time...  
  
     I remember not wanting to obey him with every fibre of my being, even though I did, somewhere deep inside, behind all the soldier crap, care about him.  Despite everything.  Maybe even because of everything.  But when he told me to leave, I remember how close I was to telling him where to shove it.  And even with everything that's happened since, I'm still not convinced that I shouldn't have.  I didn't though, as you may have guessed.  He was my CO, my big brother.  Always will be, and as much as I had hated the thought of leaving, the still strong soldier instincts in me knew he was right.  I couldn't have stayed.  It was too dangerous.  Always is.  But what had then been the small and growing, more human part of me screamed no.  It craved normalcy, stability.  I guess it wasn't strong enough.  Not then anyway.  Maybe not even now.  
  
     So that was that.  By sunrise the next morning I was as far away from home as I'd ever been.  As far away as I'd been the night of the escape.  It wasn't exactly the same though.  I had Zack with me this time.  Even if it was just for a short while, and I knew it was just a short while.  He'd stay long enough to get settled, give me my new orders, but it was risk to have more than one of us together for any length of time.  A kid can always hope though.  I did too.  I hoped that Zack would stay, even for just a bit longer.  He stayed just as long as I knew he would though.  It was Zack.  
  
     It was the weirdest thing.  Still kind of baffles me.  I know we're supposed to be transgenics and super fast and all that, Zack...Zack really knows how to move fast.  One minute he had been standing there, finishing debriefing me...the next he...All I did was blink.  But I've learned, a little too well, that all it takes is a blink.  One blink to steal away all shreds of hope.  One blink to leave one feeling so utterly and completely alone.  But it's amazing how people can surprise you even when you think you know them so well...


End file.
